■ ECONOMY
Lien to lead group to China
Former Chinese Nationalist Party (KMT) chairman Lien Chan (連戰) is scheduled to lead a delegation to attend a Chinese Communist Party (CCP)-KMT economic forum on Dec. 20 and Dec. 21. The CCP-KMT economic forum, initiated by Lien and Chinese President Hu Jintao (胡錦濤) and first held in 2006, is scheduled to be held in Shanghai this year, the KMT said yesterday. The party announced that Lien will leave for China on Dec. 14 and visit Tianjin and Hangzhou before attending the forum in Shanghai. Lien reached a consensus with Hu on the holding of regular KMT-CCP meetings during his first visit to Beijing in 2005. Lien stressed the importance of the KMT-CCP forum in pushing cross-strait cooperation when he attended an APEC meeting last month.
■ DIPLOMACY
Hau inks sister city pact
Taipei City has established sister city links with Ouagadougou, the capital of Burkina Faso, and will donate ambulances to help improve medical conditions there, Taipei Mayor Hau Lung-bin (郝龍斌) announced yesterday. Hau said at a signing ceremony that the two cities first established ties in 2002 during a visit to Taipei by the mayor of Ouagadougou and that the new alliance would further enhance mutual trust and facilitate partnerships between the two diplomatic allies. The two cities are expected to launch various initiatives and collaborate in areas such as public affairs management, information technology, transportation, the environment and health, Hau said. As a first step, Hau pledged that Taipei would donate four ambulances to Ouagadougou and would assist with the construction of a youth center in the African city, known for its craftsmanship, to provide a space for its culture to thrive.
■ EVENTS
Gay rights carnival today
In an effort to promote gay rights in Kaohsiung, the city government and the Gender/Sexuality Rights Association, Taiwan is organizing a carnival from 1pm to 5pm in front of the Kaohsiung Film Archive today, the association said in a press release yesterday. As gay and lesbians still face severe discrimination in society, the association hopes to promote gay-friendliness and bridge understandings between gays and non-gays through games featuring gay-related issues at the carnival. The group has chosen Kaohsiung to hold the event because it sees Kaohsiung as the city with the most diversity in southern Taiwan, and wants to use the city as a base for its gay rights campaign there. The Kaohsiung Film Archive is located at 10 Hesi Rd, Yancheng District (鹽埕), Kaohsiung City. For details, visit gsrat.net.
■ TRANSPORT
‘Duck boat’ plans delayed
The Kaohsiung City Government might not be able to introduce amphibious tourist “duck boats” before the World Games next year, a city official said yesterday. Kaohsiung City Transportation Bureau Director Wang Kuo-tsai (王國材) said his bureau had appropriated nearly NT$60 million (US$1.8 million) for purchasing the boats to diversify the leisure activities for city residents and to boost tourism during the World Games. But he said plans to build two “duck boats” were not going well and it would be “difficult to debut them before the World Games open on July 16.” The bureau first opened a tender for the “ducks” — modeled after a World War II amphibious landing vehicle — on Nov. 26, but nobody came forward, and the bureau had to open a second tender on Thursday that will close on Dec. 8.
■ TRANSPORT
First ‘green’ station opened
Taiwan Railways Administration has inaugurated its first “green” station, which will provide transportation services using state-of-the-art, eco-friendly technologies, senior administrators said yesterday. At a ceremony to celebrate the inauguration of the renovated Dalin Station in Chiayi County, Taiwan Railways Administration Director-General Frank Fan (范植谷) praised the station as a “pastiche of history and modernity.” The station’s old building, which was preserved in the renovation project, was built in 1903 during the Japanese colonial rule.The new “green” service complex is equipped with all kinds of eco-friendly technology. Fan said the complex is a 100 percent “green building,” that not only fully relies on natural ventilation and natural light, but also recycles rainwater and converts sunlight into electricity. To reduce the pollution caused by the station itself and its operations, it is also equipped with noise reducing units and air purifiers that can reduce the impact of the exhaust of diesel locomotives, he said, adding that the new complex also adopted an “overpass station” design that places the service areas over the rails, to reduce the area occupied.
■ CRIME
Infamous gunman in custody
An infamous gunman and drug trafficker who fled Taiwan 14 years ago was escorted home from the Philippines yesterday, police said. Chen Kuan-yuan (陳冠源), 52, was arrested in 1993 for smuggling heroin into the country from Thailand and possessing firearms, the Criminal Investigation Bureau (CIB) said. Chen then fled to Southeast Asia using a fake passport in 1994, before the Kaohsiung District Court sentenced him in absentia to eight years and two months in prison, CIB officials said. In November 1998, Chen was arrested in the Philippines for threatening others with a gun and has since been held by Philippine authorities, the officials said. Efforts by Taiwanese police to have Chen sent back to the country were unsuccessful until a model for cooperation between the two nations’ law enforcement agencies was established recently, they said.
Starlux Airlines, Taiwan’s newest international carrier, has announced it would apply to join the Oneworld global airline alliance before the end of next year. In an investor conference on Monday, Starlux Airlines chief executive officer Glenn Chai (翟健華) said joining the alliance would help it access Taiwan. Chai said that if accepted, Starlux would work with other airlines in the alliance on flight schedules, passenger transits and frequent flyer programs. The Oneworld alliance has 13 members, including American Airlines, British Airways, Cathay Pacific and Qantas, and serves more than 900 destinations in 170 territories. Joining Oneworld would also help boost
A new tropical storm formed late yesterday near Guam and is to approach closest to Taiwan on Thursday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said. Tropical Storm Pulasan became the 14th named storm of the year at 9:25pm yesterday, the agency said. As of 8am today, it was near Guam traveling northwest at 21kph, it said. The storm’s structure is relatively loose and conditions for strengthening are limited, WeatherRisk analyst Wu Sheng-yu (吳聖宇) said on Facebook. Its path is likely to be similar to Typhoon Bebinca, which passed north of Taiwan over Japan’s Ryukyu Islands and made landfall in Shanghai this morning, he said. However, it
Taiwan's Gold Apollo Co (金阿波羅通信) said today that the pagers used in detonations in Lebanon the day before were not made by it, but by a company called BAC which has a license to use its brand. At least nine people were killed and nearly 3,000 wounded when pagers used by Hezbollah members detonated simultaneously across Lebanon yesterday. Images of destroyed pagers analyzed by Reuters showed a format and stickers on the back that were consistent with pagers made by Gold Apollo. A senior Lebanese security source told Reuters that Hezbollah had ordered 5,000 pagers from Taiwan-based Gold Apollo. "The product was not
COLD FACTS: ‘Snow skin’ mooncakes, made with a glutinous rice skin and kept at a low temperature, have relatively few calories compared with other mooncakes Traditional mooncakes are a typical treat for many Taiwanese in the lead-up to the Mid-Autumn Festival, but a Taipei-based dietitian has urged people not to eat more than one per day and not to have them every day due to their high fat and calorie content. As mooncakes contain a lot of oil and sugar, they can have negative health effects on older people and those with diabetes, said Lai Yu-han (賴俞含), a dietitian at Taipei Hospital of the Ministry of Health and Welfare. “The maximum you can have is one mooncake a day, and do not eat them every day,” Lai